Hey guys!
Cami and I are in the midst (me more than Cam really, she was already pretty much there) of transitioning from regular ole vegan to the high carb low fat lifestyle. We'd heard a lot about it for a while and eventually decided to give it a go. We'll keep you updated on how it goes for us, our thoughts, our experience, etc. But for now, just thought we'd give you a heads up.
So far, we've both been doing pretty well. Cami is really working to cut out all overt fats in her diet to help deal with her cystic acne (she'll post about that soon), while I'm sticking to minimum plant based fats and avoiding added oils and salts when possible. If you're wondering what the hell high carb low fat veganism is, don't worry. We'll be writing all about it soon enough!
ALSO - we're going to start making videos!! Exciting, am I right? We'll post them here and on Cami's Youtube account. We'll let you know when those go up.
We've missed posting on here and are excited to be back, though I'm sure that with exams looming, we might not be as frequent posters as we'd like. We'll do our best!
Happy summer!!
C + K
Wednesday 20 May 2015
Science and Tech: The Local Food Movement - Is it REALLY Better?
The local food movement has really taken off in the past 10 or so years. It's claimed benefits are driving health and environmentally conscious consumers away from the aisles of their local Loblaws and down the gravelly paths of their neighbourhood Farmer's Market. An Iowa based study, led by Dr. Rich Pirog, found that, on average, produce travelled about 1,500 miles before reaching dinner plates. Conversely, locally sourced food was found to typically travel less than 50 miles from farm to table (Pirog, 2008). Really, the concept of 'eating local' seems pretty common sense. Produce is fresher and riper, local farms are supported, gas emissions from transportation are drastically reduced, and everyone is happier. In fact, a Canadian study estimated that replacing imported food with locally grown/produced items would save nearly 50,000 tons of transport related carbon dioxide emissions - or taking over 15,000 cars off the road for good (World Watch Institute, 2013).
But WHAT is actually local food? Are green peppers grown in Kingston local to us in Ottawa? They're a lot closer than California, that's for sure - but what does that mean? This is one issue with trying to figure out whether or not the green food movement actually is greener - there is no long standing definition of what local food really is. Since the publishing of the '100 Mile Diet' and other such books, 100 miles or just over 150 km is seen as the typical boundary. "A 100-mile radius is large enough to reach beyond a big city and small enough to truly feel local. And it rolls of the tongue much more easily than the 160-kilometer diet" (Alisa Smith, 2009). This seems like a perfectly valid way to think about local food, but it doesn't have much to do with environmental costs and benefits.
Food miles, in some cases, don't actually determine how environmentally friendly the product may be. For example, trains are 10 times more efficient at transporting cargo than freight trucks. So eating potatoes from 100 miles away transporting by truck, or eating potatoes from 1000 miles away transporting by train have pretty much the same amount of emissions. It's also important to note how a foods are grown and what impacts that process may have. Swedes, in fact, are better off eating tomatoes grown in Spain than down the street, because Spanish tomatoes are grown in open air fields, while their own must be grown in fossil fuel heated greenhouses (Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, 2012).
To get a true, comprehensive scope of the environmental impacts caused by our food system, you have to track the greenhouse gas emissions through all phases of the food's production, transportation and consumption. This method was created by two scientists, Weber and Matthews, from Carnegie Mellon University, who coined the process 'life cycle analysis'. They weaved together data from environmental agencies, trucking call sheets, and a variety of other US government sources to discover that the actual transportation accounts for only 11% of the total emissions. The two found that the most emissions actually occur before the food even leaves the 'farm' gate - over 83% of emissions occur from agricultural production (Drs. Weber and Matthews, 2009)!
Another clear pattern that emerges, according to Dr. Garnett from MIT, is that the type of food in question can have a big impact. In fact, the emissions generating from the meat and dairy industries account for more 53% of all food related emissions worldwide (World Watch Institute, 2012) and much more than all transport emissions globally. "Broadly speaking, eating fewer meat and dairy products and consuming more plant foods in their place is probably the single most helpful behavioural shift one can make to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions" says Garnett. Weber and Matthews point out that even if food miles were reduced to 0 - an almost impossible goal, by the way - this would only reduce emissions by 5 - 11%, but replacing red meat and dairy with fish, eggs, or even chicken one day a week is the equivalent of saving 760 miles of driving emissions. Even better, replacing meat or dairy with veggies one night a week would be like driving 1, 160 miles less. Wow!
Now, all of that said, let's return to this concept of 'eating local'. What we didn't discuss earlier are some un-food mile related benefits that locavore eating can bring about. Local foods are often seasonal and much less processed, both of which are associated with lower green house gas emissions than conventional foods. Local foods found at farmer's markets or from CSAs are also often organic, which typical is greener, as the emissions produced by the creation, transportation and application of chemical fertilizers are eliminated. Organic food also has some other benefits; less use of toxic anti-pesticides and other chemicals is much easier on ecosystems and encourages greater biodiversity, organic fields require less irrigation (normally). Additionally, local farmers are typically smaller scale and can therefore adopt more sustainable practices to meet market need (Wolfe, 2003). Let's not forget about the relationships and community eating local can foster either - knowing where you food is coming from and meeting the grower face to face is quite remarkable.
As local food is so often discussed only in terms of it's mileage, we tend to forget about it's other benefits - but as Gail Feenstra says (a food analyst at the University of California), a food's carbon footprint "can't be the only measuring stick of environmental sustainability". According to local food advocate Sage Winn, eating local is about "how those [foods] were farmed, how the farm workers were treated" - a sprawling collection of ecological, societal and economic factors combine to form true sustainability (Winn, 2003).
In my opinion, eating local is a pretty cool thing to do. Going vegetarian or vegan, even one night or two a week, is also a fabulous option for reducing your carbon footprint. My Mom and I actually shop at our local farmer's market every Sunday morning - for the yummy foods, the sense of community, and honestly, how much fun it is! As Canadians, going local is a little harder in the winter, when our only 'local' produce are pretty much potatoes and last season's apples!
But WHAT is actually local food? Are green peppers grown in Kingston local to us in Ottawa? They're a lot closer than California, that's for sure - but what does that mean? This is one issue with trying to figure out whether or not the green food movement actually is greener - there is no long standing definition of what local food really is. Since the publishing of the '100 Mile Diet' and other such books, 100 miles or just over 150 km is seen as the typical boundary. "A 100-mile radius is large enough to reach beyond a big city and small enough to truly feel local. And it rolls of the tongue much more easily than the 160-kilometer diet" (Alisa Smith, 2009). This seems like a perfectly valid way to think about local food, but it doesn't have much to do with environmental costs and benefits.
Food miles, in some cases, don't actually determine how environmentally friendly the product may be. For example, trains are 10 times more efficient at transporting cargo than freight trucks. So eating potatoes from 100 miles away transporting by truck, or eating potatoes from 1000 miles away transporting by train have pretty much the same amount of emissions. It's also important to note how a foods are grown and what impacts that process may have. Swedes, in fact, are better off eating tomatoes grown in Spain than down the street, because Spanish tomatoes are grown in open air fields, while their own must be grown in fossil fuel heated greenhouses (Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, 2012).
 |
| Or maybe not? |
To get a true, comprehensive scope of the environmental impacts caused by our food system, you have to track the greenhouse gas emissions through all phases of the food's production, transportation and consumption. This method was created by two scientists, Weber and Matthews, from Carnegie Mellon University, who coined the process 'life cycle analysis'. They weaved together data from environmental agencies, trucking call sheets, and a variety of other US government sources to discover that the actual transportation accounts for only 11% of the total emissions. The two found that the most emissions actually occur before the food even leaves the 'farm' gate - over 83% of emissions occur from agricultural production (Drs. Weber and Matthews, 2009)!
Another clear pattern that emerges, according to Dr. Garnett from MIT, is that the type of food in question can have a big impact. In fact, the emissions generating from the meat and dairy industries account for more 53% of all food related emissions worldwide (World Watch Institute, 2012) and much more than all transport emissions globally. "Broadly speaking, eating fewer meat and dairy products and consuming more plant foods in their place is probably the single most helpful behavioural shift one can make to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions" says Garnett. Weber and Matthews point out that even if food miles were reduced to 0 - an almost impossible goal, by the way - this would only reduce emissions by 5 - 11%, but replacing red meat and dairy with fish, eggs, or even chicken one day a week is the equivalent of saving 760 miles of driving emissions. Even better, replacing meat or dairy with veggies one night a week would be like driving 1, 160 miles less. Wow!
Now, all of that said, let's return to this concept of 'eating local'. What we didn't discuss earlier are some un-food mile related benefits that locavore eating can bring about. Local foods are often seasonal and much less processed, both of which are associated with lower green house gas emissions than conventional foods. Local foods found at farmer's markets or from CSAs are also often organic, which typical is greener, as the emissions produced by the creation, transportation and application of chemical fertilizers are eliminated. Organic food also has some other benefits; less use of toxic anti-pesticides and other chemicals is much easier on ecosystems and encourages greater biodiversity, organic fields require less irrigation (normally). Additionally, local farmers are typically smaller scale and can therefore adopt more sustainable practices to meet market need (Wolfe, 2003). Let's not forget about the relationships and community eating local can foster either - knowing where you food is coming from and meeting the grower face to face is quite remarkable.
As local food is so often discussed only in terms of it's mileage, we tend to forget about it's other benefits - but as Gail Feenstra says (a food analyst at the University of California), a food's carbon footprint "can't be the only measuring stick of environmental sustainability". According to local food advocate Sage Winn, eating local is about "how those [foods] were farmed, how the farm workers were treated" - a sprawling collection of ecological, societal and economic factors combine to form true sustainability (Winn, 2003).
In my opinion, eating local is a pretty cool thing to do. Going vegetarian or vegan, even one night or two a week, is also a fabulous option for reducing your carbon footprint. My Mom and I actually shop at our local farmer's market every Sunday morning - for the yummy foods, the sense of community, and honestly, how much fun it is! As Canadians, going local is a little harder in the winter, when our only 'local' produce are pretty much potatoes and last season's apples!
Wednesday 13 May 2015
Update
Hey folks, it's been a minute!
Kate and I have been extremely busy busting our butts at school. It is exhausting. And emotionally draining. And what I imagine hell to be like, except less fun.
I won't go into the boring details, but let's just say that I am currently not The Universe's biggest fan at the moment. Is it weird that I capitalized The Universe??? I have always been a strong believer in other worldly "powers-that-be" and I mean, what is any more mysterious/magical than da UNIVERSE?! Nothing, that's what.
Speaking of otherworldly, my birthday passed a bit more than a month ago (omg possibly verging on two months, how long have we neglected our poor blog?!) and I got some very celestial, witchy lil play thangs. I've decided I will soon be doing a fashion post regarding modern witch attire a la Cami, as well as a witch-haul/essentials/my journey through Wicca. Ooh and maybe some general fashion lookbooks of what I wear day to day when I'm not a lazy butt. Also I thought it would be cool if I did some style icon posts! Who's down for that?
Anyways, I realize I am crazy ranting, but I am slightly frizzle frazzled and for some reason decided catching all of you peeps up on Kate and I's current life sitch was a good way to beat stress. I can't tell if it's working.
Actually, I will force Kate to do a lil update-y post of her own as I do not want to take responsibility for giving you all the downlow on her life. I would probably sound dumb and make her life sound boring when it is really jammin!
I will however tell you that for school Kate and I have been required to write some blog posts on chemistry related subjects, and just to keep this blog updated I'm thinking we're going to start a new Science and Tech section for all the lovelies out there who like this sort of stuff, just like me n Kate. I think it could be super cool and I know we've put a lot of effort into the posts, so stay tuned for some of those ya'hear?
Alrighty, I am officially tapped out. I must now go and try to do some calculations for chem and quietly weep into my notes. Possibly eat a lime popsicle after as a reward. Actually fuck that, I'm gonna eat it now and then work. I need the motivation.
Ciao babes,
C
Kate and I have been extremely busy busting our butts at school. It is exhausting. And emotionally draining. And what I imagine hell to be like, except less fun.
I won't go into the boring details, but let's just say that I am currently not The Universe's biggest fan at the moment. Is it weird that I capitalized The Universe??? I have always been a strong believer in other worldly "powers-that-be" and I mean, what is any more mysterious/magical than da UNIVERSE?! Nothing, that's what.
Speaking of otherworldly, my birthday passed a bit more than a month ago (omg possibly verging on two months, how long have we neglected our poor blog?!) and I got some very celestial, witchy lil play thangs. I've decided I will soon be doing a fashion post regarding modern witch attire a la Cami, as well as a witch-haul/essentials/my journey through Wicca. Ooh and maybe some general fashion lookbooks of what I wear day to day when I'm not a lazy butt. Also I thought it would be cool if I did some style icon posts! Who's down for that?
Anyways, I realize I am crazy ranting, but I am slightly frizzle frazzled and for some reason decided catching all of you peeps up on Kate and I's current life sitch was a good way to beat stress. I can't tell if it's working.
Actually, I will force Kate to do a lil update-y post of her own as I do not want to take responsibility for giving you all the downlow on her life. I would probably sound dumb and make her life sound boring when it is really jammin!
I will however tell you that for school Kate and I have been required to write some blog posts on chemistry related subjects, and just to keep this blog updated I'm thinking we're going to start a new Science and Tech section for all the lovelies out there who like this sort of stuff, just like me n Kate. I think it could be super cool and I know we've put a lot of effort into the posts, so stay tuned for some of those ya'hear?
Alrighty, I am officially tapped out. I must now go and try to do some calculations for chem and quietly weep into my notes. Possibly eat a lime popsicle after as a reward. Actually fuck that, I'm gonna eat it now and then work. I need the motivation.
Ciao babes,
C
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